The not-so-ongoing travels...

Bah! Bah!, I say. There has been a distinct lack of traveling. I blame flu, inertia, timidity, and general lameness on my part. This weekend was especially bad, due to the FANTASTIC combination of an acute sinus infection and a migraine.

Therefore I have made a promise to myself that next weekend will see me outside the boundaries of this city, either with friends I've made here, or by myself. I just need to see more! I'm gonna look at various places I can go over the course of the week, and then make arrangements to just book it on out of here as soon as is reasonable after work on Friday.

There! A resolution has been made!

Flip flopping like a lib'ral

So I was thinking about it today, and I realized that if I leave my job at the semester to go and do other things, it will be because I want to go and do those other things. The thing is, the person who wants to go and do those other things is the same person I was when I walked off the plane into the airport. And the point of coming here was to force myself to change again.

I have changed a little, already. I saw it today, at work: I'm stronger, I stand taller. It's not physical (being sick has weakened me, in fact), but it's there all the same. I want to grow into it more, earn my "veteran" teacher status. It's a challenge, and I don't really want to back down from it.

At the same time, I don't want to change so much that I change my mind about wanting to go to Hawaii, or travel with friends, or about what's important to me. Maybe that's what's so exciting about my new point of view: if I stay here for another 9 months, I will forced not only to change, but to control that change, and integrate the things I want to be without losing track of who I already am.

Musings aside, I'm getting by at the moment. My birthday weekend was not as exciting or "fun" as last year's, but I did have a good time, and I'm really, really glad that I got to see my Dad again. I'm still sick, but I finally have decent drugs on hand, so at least I can get some symptom relief. All in all, things are all right, and I'm doing well. Just gotta figure out the answers to a few more questions is all. I figure it'll always be that way.

Travel is as travel does

I do like Taipei. It's a beautiful city full of largely nice and helpful people. The weather is decent (it's 70 degrees outside, and that feels chilly now) and there's theoretically lots to do. It's just kinda lonely, compared to Portland. Most of my friends are still in the Pacific Northwest, and it really is tempting to move there next. Maybe I'll see if there are any research jobs in the area that I could apply to for next academic year. Grad school applications are still a ways off.

Life continues on pretty much as usual here. Weekdays are consumed by work, and weeknights are spent watching a movie or a downloaded TV show on the couch, and maybe writing a letter or two. Weekend days I try to get out, though I've been sick enough or migraine-ridden enough lately that getting out in a big way hasn't really happened. Still, I will be heading back over to Taroko in a couple of weeks when my dad is in town, and I'm excited about that. And Ali has mentioned that she'd like to do some more exploring when her mother heads back to Britain. I may try to convince Martin and Katherine to come check out the North Coast area with me next weekend.

I'm not really saving money, and I'm not really getting much of an opportunity to explore and "see the world". I may have to re-evaluate whether this is the way I want to spend my year off. Advice?

Halloween 07

Halloween came and went. The kids were super hyper before and after, but not during our trick and treating. For the 45 minutes we walked around they decided to be moody and cranky. Awesome.

Anyway, there are about a million pictures up on the page now conveniently linked on the right side of the blog. Most of them are cute little Taiwanese kids, but somehow they snuck this big, ugly, white guy into a few. It's like Where's Waldo but in reverse.